


L9A1, Thirteen Rounds

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock BBC
Genre: Angst, Gen, Morbid thoughts, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-01
Updated: 2011-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-19 15:13:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Today is the day that Sherlock Holmes hits zero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	L9A1, Thirteen Rounds

Sherlock Holmes sits on his bed with a gun in his hand, calmly slipping bullets into the clip.

Browning L9A1. Holds thirteen rounds. Quite remarkable.

He won’t be needing that many.

In a simultaneous motion he begins to toe the socks off his feet. Left, first, then right. When he was younger, back in the huge house with the dark wooden floors and heavy curtains, he used to walk around barefoot. Along corridors, through kitchens, down cellars, to the end of the garden and back simply because he could. Mother tutted and scolded and pushed him gingerly towards the awaiting nanny; the face of the woman greeting him changes for each memory, he’s had so many. Fascinating how he can now care so little about any of them when they used to have so much influence. Such reverence he held, didn’t he, until the digits in his age were singular no longer and he realised he had independent thought. Mother, no, go away. Leave me alone. Mycroft, fuck off. All of you, leave me the fuck alone, I’m studying- _fuck off_!

Learning to swear was an emancipation.

Learning to _learn_ , that was better.

Things about other people. Annoying things. Embarrassing things. Important things. Things they didn’t want you to know. Things you could use against them. No need to ask when you can just _know_.

To Waterloo, please. Preferably without detailing to me the long and _riveting_ story of your recent divorce and how the bitch is going to take everything, including the kids, just because you used to have a drinking problem but _you’re all clean now, honest_ , not a drop since ninety-eight.

I suppose our essays are still in that same unmarked pile you put them in before submitting to the Red Lion, mmm?

All adults are drunkards; some just hide it better than others. People drink to celebrate, to enjoy, to improve an evening, to forget, to drown, to hide, because they just fucking want to die and this is the best way they can think of to go about it.

Sherlock Holmes is drunk.

Sherlock Holmes has finished loading his gun.

John would be crying, now, probably, if he were here. John would be the type to bang on doors and murmur his dissent through the wood and slide notes along the carpet and use his remembered Army strength to kick the damn thing in. He’d wrestle the weapon off his friend and toss it onto the landing – his gun! His bloody gun! – and hold the man close saying _no, no, don’t ever do that to me again, Sherlock, no_.

John is not crying or making a scene, for John is not here.

John hasn’t been here for a long time.

It was a long time ago, wasn’t it, the time they’d gotten that message and that call and had caught a cab to Fordham Park (it had been such an excessive fare; it was only afterwards that Sherlock felt sick for making John pay) but it was a trap, a fucking trap, and there had been that gunshot and that ex-Army Doctor falling to the floor and Sherlock only saved himself because he was brilliant, as always, as ever. John lay bleeding into the grass while a Consulting Detective pumped bullets into unnamed henchmen and roared into the sky damning any deity listening.

He’d laughed into John’s bloody chest saying _come on, Watson, you’ve survived this once before_.

John had lost the ability to say anything in response.

Thus he is saying nothing now. He is not there to warn Sherlock that this may not be a good idea. Sherlock is much past listening to anything anyone has to say anyway; perhaps it was better that John died first – rather him go before than stick around to see Sherlock do anything stupid or dangerous or risky or suicidal and end his life prematurely. John would attend his funeral with enough guilt for the careless family members there struggling to invent chirpy stories that painted him in a good light, for once. I remember this one time – oh it was hilarious – Sherlock…

There were never any good times.

Times with John made life seem bearable. Like John was his own antidote to the diseases that he felt spewing into his veins every day, the narcotic he used to have to pay ridiculous street prices for. Like one man could _really make a difference_.

Slowly, as John decayed in the soil, Sherlock felt his life slip back to zero. He was a man rewound, deleted as they went, his future diminishing as his past slowly slid away. Every moment that was erased, every smile or snort or eyebrow raise, sent the numbers cascading down.

Today is the day Sherlock Holmes hits zero.

Tomorrow is negative.

An email had seemed excessive but Sherlock felt that perhaps Lestrade – Greg – deserved at least one last hurrah. Nothing towards an explanation, for nothing merited that, but a curt excuse for his absence and the insinuation that the hiatus would be somewhat indefinite. It hadn’t taken him long to compose something vague enough to pacify a Detective Inspector. He is still, if only just, Sherlock Holmes.

It is Saturday evening and Lestrade is at home with his family watching inane reality television and rejoicing in life’s little wonders. He gazes at his wife, waist thicker and thighs less firm, but he still loves her. His kids seem to learn more ways to infuriate him every day but he loves them equally. Tomorrow he will finally succumb to a puppy and this will bring them enough stress and delight to somehow make it worth it.

There is a Consulting Detective sitting on his bed with the barrel of a gun in the centre of his forehead.

He’ll lie back to do it, probably. Unless he just wants to be awkward. He needs to decide. Remaining somewhat erect will produce a fetching splatter pattern on his bare grey wall that will be a nuisance to clean off and haunt the upstairs flat for decades. A man committed suicide in that very bedroom. A good man. At this point Mrs Hudson will falter, memories clouded by retrospect and an infuriating capacity to see the good in people; she will nod and close the door and remember she doesn’t really like telling that story, but countless know it already. They have no intention of renting the flat but treat it almost as a magical mystery tour. Summer afternoons and the last gasps of October produce the most viewings – kids that can’t be past university age walking round for a gawp and a gander at a real life haunted house. It’s so nearby! And in these modern times, a real ghost! Crazy stuff.

It won’t be true. Sherlock isn’t fucking haunting anyone, let alone his horrible cramped bedroom. He’ll be either in the ground or in the air and he doesn’t care because wherever it is he’s not alive and he’s not with John. They could bury him in the same plot and he still wouldn’t be with John.

 _John_.

He is a name amongst fragments. A blot against miles of blankness. But soon John will fade, too. The smell, the face, the voice, the feel of his unexpected and terrifying hugs. _Sherlock, I am never doing that_ ever again, _you understand?_ These will all go and Sherlock will remain and he’ll still have obligations and an occupation and what will it matter, really? Nothing will matter. Nothing. Nothing.

Even through the omnipresent roar of his pain, Sherlock hears the sirens. The cars cut out their engines by the pavement and sheets of metal slam and feet charge towards the door. Of course, Gregory Lestrade, you bastard. Spend more time with your family. Buy your kids that puppy. But don’t _ever_ check your work email on a Saturday evening.

Why was he even in the office?

Feet thunder up the stairs. Many pairs. Must have a whole begrudging team there, acting at their concern for this prick of a man they hear everything about.

He wasn’t supposed to get that until Monday.

Up the next flight; they’re running. Ever closer they stride, two stairs at a time.

This is all wrong.

Bodies pool around his bedroom door. Orders are shouted. They’re going to break the door in, those closest to the front use your feet! On my signal, go!

Three, two-

A magnificent mind ends in a shattering of skull and memories.  


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End file.
